Ok, I'm at it again...
I'm attempting to salvage a friend's ancient Fujitsu computer with a Full Install of Puppy.
Some readers might remember the marathon Frugal installation that the Pup Save Team rescued last year:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=62583
The issue with that install is actually the same issue that I am facing with this new Full install on a different machine.
The CD/DVD ROM drive will only read commercially pressed discs. It will not read *home made* Live CD discs cut on new media. (Toshiba recognizes this issue but their fix doesn't seem to work).
The machine BIOS don't give a boot option for a USB flash drive.
WakePup2 installs a Puppy Boot USB flash drive but then hangs on a blinking cursor.

I still have the commercially pressed disc containing samples of small Linux distros provided by LinuxForum magazine as a cover disc (we used it last year. BTW, that installation is still running perfect). The old Toshiba drive takes that disc with no issues. The Puppy sample included on the disc is Puppy 431.

In last years marathon install, rcrsn51 discovered that some of the core Puppy files were in a different place than the .iso on the cover disc and that gave us some grief.

So this time, I intend to do a *Full* install following Catdude's excellent tutorial, but, in anticipation of the separated files on the sample disc, I took the .iso file provided by the sample disc and *extracted* it to a flash drive. (the machine will read data flash drives). All the files, I think, I need appear within one folder.

My first question is: Can I use the Puppy 431 running in RAM to Full install a Puppy .iso that is located in a directory? Universal Installer and Catdudes directions seem to indicate 'yes'. (Catdude's instructions follow the choice of installing from a Live CD, not a directory).
My second question is: Do the .iso(s) have to be the same? In-other-words can I use the cover disc Puppy 431 to install, say for example, Puppy-520 .iso located in a data flash drive directory?

I hope the answer is 'yes' to both questions as I am finding that many of the so-called *broken* CD/DVD drives aren't really failing. They just aren't updated to read the newer media format non-commercially burned . If this does work then the one precious pressed disc I have can install a variety of Puppies on these older machines. The discs that LinuxForum magazine uses are made by EcoDisc http://www.ecodisc.org/index.php. I also tried a disc from OSDisc.com Their discs didn't work on the old drive.

Thank you in advance for any suggestion or advice. Remember, I'm a newbie and not a geek. I need clear, simple words, just like Catdude did in his tutorial.

....My first question is: Can I use the Puppy 431 running in RAM to Full install a Puppy .iso that is located in a directory? Universal Installer and Catdudes directions seem to indicate 'yes'. (Catdude's instructions follow the choice of installing from a Live CD, not a directory).

You should be able to, but you will only be able to install Puppy 431,
so you may as well just tell the installer to get the files from the CD

Sky Aisling wrote:

....My second question is: Do the .iso(s) have to be the same? In-other-words can I use the cover disc Puppy 431 to install, say for example, Puppy-520 .iso located in a data flash drive directory?

I believe you have just enlightened me about Full and Frugal installation with your suggestion.

I realize that my initial question asked how to do a Full install given the conditions of the machine and .iso source I described.
However, it appears in reading your suggestion that a Frugal install is done first on Sda2.
Apparently, Step 3 plus the menu.lst adjustment is basically what it takes to create a Frugal install?
If so, then why would I need to continue to make a Full install on Sda1?

The goal is to get a solid, working Puppy onto the machine.*
I'm not prejudicial as to whether the format is Full or Frugal.

The reason why I choose the Full install is because your tutorial is so easy to follow and it gets a working Puppy on a machine fairly easily.
If I could have found a Frugal tutorial as clear as your Full tutorial I may have used that.
I am accustomed to using GUI screens rather than console entries. (although I like console entries if I know the commands)

One detail question: it appears that Lupu-520 can use GRUB, GRUB2, GRUB4Dos?
RJBrewer mentioned that Lupu-520 doesn't have GRUB included in the .iso as other .iso do. (sorry, can't find that reference).
I'm finding 520 to be an excellent Puppy to use even on the old machines. 520 is my current preference. However, I'll use 431 if that is what works easiest in this situation.

*Note: most of these machines I *rescue* are in their *sunset years* and are given to non-tech people who simply want a working OS. The user isn't interested in any tech options. They just want to get their email, explore the web a bit and swap family pictures. The machine may last a few years longer before being tossed into the e-dustbin of recycled electronics. Hopefully, this effort helps a bit with issues of e-waste and provides perfectly good low cost machines with an excellent OS to those who need a simple, low-cost communications solution.

One detail question: it appears that Lupu-520 can use GRUB, GRUB2, GRUB4Dos?
RJBrewer mentioned that Lupu-520 doesn't have GRUB included in the .iso as other .iso do. (sorry, can't find that reference).
I'm finding 520 to be an excellent Puppy to use even on the old machines. 520 is my current preference. However, I'll use 431 if that is what works easiest in this situation.

I said that the newest Puppies (newer than 4.31) do not include the
grub install as part of the universal install procedure.
Grub is installed from grub in the menu.
Of course it's included in the iso.

When installing grub it's necessary to enter the right lines in
/boot/grub/menu.lst when doing a frugal install.
A simple menu.lst entry is made automatically when doing a full
install.

When using older machines it's good to compare frugal and full
installs to see which works best.

You are so good, rjbrewer.

So, CatDude gives the option of having the same OS present as a Frugal Install and a Full Install on the same machine. I didn't realize that could be done.

Assuming that I successfully follow CatDude's suggestion and get the two forms of install loaded into the machine, you then suggest that it's good to compare the two installs, (Frugal and Full).

What am I looking for in the comparison? Do I just play with the installations and *feel* which is faster in bringing up apps, surfing the web? or, heaven forbid, I must learn some tech tools for doing tech comparisons? Sky is looking squinty and sideways at the screen right now.

I'm assuming that I will be presented with a choice of which installation to use at boot up?

Thank You...I'll start tinkering with your suggestions over the weekend...I'll post results in a few days.

Question: Is it my imagination or has the image quality of our avatars decreased in the last week? Maybe it's my system but CatDude's beautiful blinking cat avatar seems pixelated as does rjbrewer's froggy.

Then: Error message 15.
There was one deviation from CatDude's example.
After configuring GRUB, a choice box said:

Quote:

Puppy users: If running grubconfig from Universal Installer, leave the box empty, just click OK button. Usually GRUB is installed to the MBR of the primary hard drive, in your case '/dev/sda'. If you have more than one hard drive, and want GRUB installed to the MBR of another hard drive, put the device below or leave the box blank for '/dev/sda.

I sweated this decision. I chose to leave blank as sda2 did not have boot flag. ?

Listed below are screenshots of:
Gparted set up
Copy of files: initrd.gz lupu_520.sfs vmlinuz
Grubconfig message
Menulist adjustments - sorry, can't find menu list adjustment screenshot.I triple checked the change to the menu list, but...I could have messed up there. Is there a way to see the menu list from this blue grub screen that I am currently stuck at?

Won't do you much good though; gparted shows you have nothing
installed on sda1 or sda2.

So, when I did step 3

Quote:

3. Mount /dev/sda2
and create a directory called: lupu520
Copy these files from the lupu-520.iso

initrd.gz
lupu_520.sfs
vmlinuz

and put them into /dev/sda2/lupu520

Unmount /dev/sda2

edited -
So Step 3 didn't install lupu-520 on sda2? in combo with the *menu.lst* change?
Perhaps the change to *menu.lst* didn't *save*? Perhaps I should start over and when I do the *menu.lst* change save an old copy with a different name before saving the altered *menu.lst* ?

What will do me some good?Last edited by Sky Aisling on Sun 03 Jul 2011, 19:53; edited 1 time in total

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